Birthday
by moonmama
Summary: A birthday celebration complete with cake, presents, live balloon plants, brainsucking aliens, and 1001 alternate uses for a yoyo. Well, three anyway…
1. Chapter 1

For someone who was over 900 years old, she'd have thought he'd have honed his listening comprehension skills a bit more by now.

"And what's this?" he repeated, for what seemed to her like the fiftieth time but was really only the third.

Rose was extending her arm towards the Doctor, offering him a box. The box had some paper on it. It was, in fact, wrapped entirely in paper. Decorative paper, no less. With ribbons and bows on top.

She sighed and began her explanation once again, much more slowly this time. "This," she said in a voice she normally reserved for her friend Shareen's three-year-old nephew, "is a _birthday present_."

His blank expression made her wonder how he could've ever had the nerve to call _Mickey_ an 'idiot.'

"But it's not my – I mean, I don't have a –" he stammered.

"Everyone's got a birthday," she retorted sternly. "Just because you were born on some Time Lord planet with some Time Lord calendar that's got nothing to do with Earth years and months and weeks, there was still a day that the Doctor came into existence, and I think it's damn well time that we celebrated that event. D'you really know for sure that it's _not_ your birthday?"

Still looking sceptical, he accepted the box from her hands, and gingerly gave it a shake. Then he lifted it up to his face and sniffed it.

"It's not a stink bomb," she offered. "It's not gonna explode or anything."

And then suddenly he was ripping away at the wrapping, all excitement and impish smiles. She waited patiently while he opened the box and examined its contents, anticipating his appreciation.

"Oh," came his response, as he pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. Rose was reminded of how her mother used to look when admiring the artwork she brought home from the second grade.

This was not quite the degree of enthusiasm she'd been expecting.

"D'you recognize it?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah," he assured her as he lifted up a tattered-looking black leather jacket from the box. "1978. The Ramones. New York." He rubbed the back of his neck and Rose had the distinct impression that his look of appreciation was a bit forced.

"That," she explained, "was Dee Dee Ramone's very own jacket. Hand painted _and_ autographed."

"Right, right. Lovely," he said, nodding his head vigorously.

"And the CD," she prodded.

He looked back in the box and retrieved a CD, which she grabbed from his grasp and opened, revealing several photos of the live Ramones concert in question.

"Look," she said, pointing to a particularly ebullient concertgoer in the fifth row, who stood out largely due to the suit and tie he was wearing amongst a sea of black, denim, and safety pins.

The Doctor reached into his pocket, retrieved his glasses and put them on. He squinted at the miniscule picture. "That's me," he observed.

"And there's that bloke next to you who almost blinded you with that aviator-fuel drink of his 'cause he didn't think you were a real fan, in your pinstripes and all."

The Doctor grinned appreciatively. "I had to sing every lyric to _Somebody Put Something In My Drink _just to convince him."

"Meant to tell you – singing? Doesn't really work for you," Rose taunted him. "And there's me," she continued, pointing to a figure next to him in the picture.

"Ah, yeah," he replied. "Meant to tell you, orange doesn't really work for you."

"Prat," she said, elbowing him in the ribs.

"You started it," he replied childishly.

"D'you like it?" she asked tentatively.

"Love it," he said warmly as he leaned over to give her a hug.

Rose leaned into the embrace, taking in his scent of strawberry jam, that fluid he used on the TARIDS circuits, and the third, inevitably unidentifiable scent as she went on, "I've got cake, too. Baked it at my mum's."

He wasn't listening. "What's that?" he asked suddenly, releasing her from his embrace and stooping over to pick up the torn gift wrap that he had tossed behind her on the floor.

Rose watched as he fingered through the jumble of ribbons and extracted something. He held it up to show her, grinning wildly.

It was a yo-yo.

"Ahh, brilliant," he said excitedly as he slid the loop onto his finger and released the yo-yo. "Now _this_," he said as he bobbed it up and down, "You were holding out on me, Rose Tyler, I almost missed this."

It's not easy to bounce a yo-yo when you're simultaneously bouncing yourself up and down in Converse trainers. Soon the Doctor was disentangling himself from the string, which had wrapped itself around his legs.

"Three hundred quid for that jacket and he plays with the toy that came with the meal," Rose muttered to herself. The yo-yo had, in fact, been a freebie stuck onto the box by the sales clerk who had done the gift wrapping.

"Fancy a go, Rose?" he offered, bounding over to her. "D'you know any tricks? Walk the dog? Pinwheel? Around the World?" He paused. "No need to stop with Earth tricks, either; you'd be amazed at the prevalence of yo-yos in the universe. Now forgetting about the Trellians, who've banned them entirely; nasty business involving a rhinoceros and some beets, the southern continent on Qujaga have an entire religion based on them. They actually grow wild on the Kalish home world. They're edible even; lovely with chutney, and then of course there's..." he paused again. "Sorry, did you say something about cake?" he asked suddenly.

This was not going at all how Rose had planned. She sighed in frustration and answered, "Yeah, just a little something I whipped up at my mum's while you were off chasing that ice lizard thingamabob the other day."

He leaned over sideways and asked her almost seductively, "is it…chocolate?"

Rose smiled and ran her tongue over her front teeth teasingly. "Death By Chocolate, in fact," she informed him playfully.

"Now _that_ is something worth celebrating," the Doctor said as he dashed over to the TARDIS console and started to punch buttons and knobs. "Just one more thing we need," he added as the engines started to whir.

"And what's that?" she asked him.

"Balloons," he replied as he slumped back into the console chair and looked up at her with that smile of his, the smile that could look at Daleks and werewolves and anything else the universe threw at them and still make her feel like it was a warm spring day and anything was possible.

"Oh, I've got some," Rose retorted. "Picked them up when I was off getting the jacket."

"_Real_ balloons," he clarified. "Not those cheap rubber things you have on Earth."

"So where are we going, then?" she inquired.

"Oh, no spoiling the surprise, Rose," the Doctor replied.

* * *

There was a sound of scurrying, leaves rustling and a few sticks breaking as they opened the door to the TARDIS and emerged. 

"And what sort of threatening life forms live here, then?" Rose inquired, looking at the Doctor behind her. "Blood suckers? Power-hungry mosquitoes? Aliens that look like giant weathervanes and feed off of human kneecaps?"

"Nothing here," he informed her. "This planet's perfectly safe. Just your basic wildlife. There's some tree dwellers live here, that's all; they're sort of a cross between a monkey and an Ewok."

Rose raised an eyebrow at him.

"Really, Rose, the biggest danger they present would be falling poo, and even that won't happen till dusk, when they return to their lairs up there," the Doctor said, pointing upwards.

Rose looked away from him and scanned their surroundings. They appeared to be in a forest, not too dense, and not entirely unlike a forest on Earth, except that the trees looked to be about twice as tall. The colours, too, she realized, were all just slightly off; the sky was a little more lavender shaded, the leaves on the trees were slightly blue-green, the tree trunks were a shade darker brown than she was accustomed to. Rose had the impression of having fallen into a picture book of fairy tales, and kept expecting Tinkerbelle to come flying by, trailing fairy dust behind her.

She looked down the slight incline on which they stood and saw a lake, about twenty feet from where the TARDIS was parked. It was surrounded by waist-deep brush, slightly pink in colour.

She noticed a tiny creature, not entirely unlike a turtle, as it scuttled into the water.

She turned to the Doctor, who was picking at the bark on a nearby tree in curiosity. "So balloons, then?" she asked.

"Right, balloons" he said, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, which was starting to get low over the lake. He quickly scanned the area. "None," he announced. "Looks like we're going to have to go foraging for them." He turned and headed back to the TARDIS.

"Foraging? Where are you going?" Rose demanded of him, increasingly frustrated with this "surprise."

"Hang on, be right back," he replied and disappeared into the TARDIS.

Rose paced about, impatient, as she waited for him to return, and pondered this celebration that _she_ was supposed to be giving _him_. Somehow she'd managed to lose control of the situation. As usual.

Finally the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS carrying something large over his head.

Rose realized it was a boat. He hauled it down to the water, flipped it over and onto the ground, and pushed it into the water.

"All aboard," he said, gesturing for Rose to climb in.

"And where are we going?" she asked.

"Just out on the lake," he explained. "Shouldn't have to go far."

She obliged and climbed into the boat. He followed, took hold of the oars and they glided noiselessly across the water.

They were silent for a time, taking in their surroundings and listening to the gentle splashing of the oars and the water against the boat. This went on for a good ten minutes until Rose realized she was humming idly to herself and started to giggle. The Doctor gave her a questioning look.

"Oh, it's nothing, just a song we used to sing as kids," she explained, and to demonstrate, she started to sing. "A boy and a girl in a little canoe with the moon shining all around." She dissolved into peals of laughter as if this was the funniest thing she had ever heard.

The Doctor was looking at her as if she had just announced her impending marriage to a member of the Slitheen.

Rose did her best to explain. "It almost sounds just like us, except…a boy – but you're not a boy, are you, you're an alien, and the moon shining, but it's some other planet, I don't even know if it's got a moon…" again, the hilarity of it all consumed her and she was rendered speechless in her fits of laughter.

The Doctor chuckled, but she suspected he was really just humouring her. "So how's the rest of the song go?" he asked.

Rose continued singing, "so, they talked and they talked, 'til the moon grew dim, Then she said, 'You gotta kiss me or get out and swim!'" She could feel herself flushing. Just a little.

"And who's she to be making the demands?" he asked in a rather affronted tone. "She's got the problem, sounds like she should be the one to get out and swim." The Doctor paused, running a hand through his hair. "'Course, really, though, he might as well just go ahead and kiss her."

"Yeah?" Rose asked, a little too quickly.

"Better slightly damp on the lips than completely drenched from head to foot," he explained logically.

"Ah, so this is a carefully thought out, risk vs. benefit analysis, is it?" Rose replied. "Hang on, 'slightly damp?'" she demanded. "That's what you think of kissing? _Slightly damp_?"

"Well, unless it's Catherine the Great, in which case it's downright sopping," he replied. "Who knows, though, maybe I'm just not doing it right," he replied. "C'mere, let's give it a go. Tell me what you think."

"What?" Rose asked in disbelief.

The Doctor pointed to his puckered-up lips. "Let's have at it, then."

"You serious?" she asked, still not sure she'd heard him properly.

"Better than swimming," he shrugged, as if this completely explained his seemingly nonchalant – and very sudden – desire to snog her.

Rose noticed that his lips were looking tantalizingly moistened and strong, and wondered what sort of kisser he was: was he a wide-mouthed-tongue-down-the-throat sort, or was he a more gentle lips-slightly-parted-swirling-playful-tongue sort? She quickly decided that if she really wanted to find out, any further argument would be a very, _very_ bad idea, closed her eyes and leaned over towards him. She could feel his breath next to hers as their lips met, sending shivers down her spine. And then his lips parted and their tongues connected and Rose was breathless as the Doctor's hands cupped her face, softly stroking her cheek and then down her neck. She thought she heard the slightest hint of a moan from him…

And then suddenly she felt a jerk on her shoulders and she was being twisted, turned, and flung over the side and into the searing cold water.

She surfaced, water dripping down her face, gasping and screaming with cold and indignation as the Doctor laughed wildly from his very dry seat in the boat, as he bobbed the yo-yo up and down casually.

Rose's mind ran amok with a million thoughts; fury at him for this humiliation, wondering how far her top had ridden up in the water, trying to see what on Earth (or whatever planet this was, anyway) that thing was that was nipping at her ankle, and wondering what that kiss was all _about_ anyway, but all she managed to utter was, "C-c-c-cold."

"Humans," he observed. "So easy. Just toss a little sex into the mix and suddenly you're the stupidest, most irrational creatures this part of the galaxy." He manoeuvred the boat over to allow her to climb in, and leaned to the other side to keep it from tipping over as she pulled herself up.

"I'm not speaking to you," she pouted, shivering as she sat down with her back to him.

"Here," he offered, removing his jacket and putting it over her shoulders. He paused, rubbing his own shoulder for a moment. "I do believe I may have injured myself tossing you in."

"Serves you right," she said crossly.

"If that's your idea of the silent treatment, it needs some work," he replied.

She was just about to grab an oar and give him the biggest, iciest splash that she could manage, when she looked up and gasped, realizing they had arrived at their destination. Clearly, here were the "balloons." Sitting atop the water, almost like lily pads, were hundreds of spheres in every colour imaginable. The sun was lower in the sky now, and it was just dark enough for Rose to be able to see the luminescence emanating from them. Their reflection on the water, combined with the waves created by the boat created a collage of colours more beautiful than the most dazzling sunrise she had ever seen on Earth.

"Ah, here we go," he said as the boat neared the shore. He leaned over the side and pulled a blue one from the water.

Rose followed suit and picked one that was a slightly metallic purple colour. "_Real_ balloons," she commented, finally understanding the full meaning of the phrase. Instinctively as if holding a flower, she pressed her face to it and sniffed. "Smells a bit…musky," she said. The texture was different too, she noticed; almost silky.

"So was it worth it?" he asked. "Worth the trip?"

She pondered for a moment. "Worth waiting on the chocolate cake, yes," she acknowledged. "Worth a lovely boat ride to view Mother Nature's splendours on another planet, yes. Worth a dunking into water cold enough to freeze Satan's balls off by a manic alien with a very bad sense of humour, no."

She was holding onto the stem of the balloon and realized that it continued to stay upright. "Will it fly away if I let go?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. "They grow full of a buoyant gas. The bigger they get, the higher they stretch until they finally break away. it's how the seeds get scattered."

She lifted it to her nose again, breathed deeply and smiled. "They're brilliant," she said finally.

After spending a short time gathering up as many balloons as they could carry, the Doctor turned the boat around and headed back toward the TARDIS. The boat reached the shore, slid onto land and they climbed out.

Rose headed toward the TARDIS, but the Doctor paused for a moment, looking down at the ground at something he had spotted.

"Hang on," he said, stopping to secure the balloons under the boat so they wouldn't fly away. He bent over and picked something up.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Don't know," he replied as he examined the object. It was black and flat, about the size of a small paperback novel, and oblong-shaped. It was rubbery; clearly not of natural origins.

Rose was growing impatient. "Chocolate cake," she reminded him in the most tantalizing voice she could muster.

"All right, all right," he replied. "But we're coming back later to explore."

The TARDIS, despite its sizeable interior, has quite a small doorway. The designers of police boxes in the twentieth century simply never expected two people to enter it at once, let alone two people laden with a rowboat and a large number of alien balloons. The result was a sizeable jumble of balloons and oars, at least one pinched finger, and a great deal of hair standing on end; as it seemed that these balloons did, in fact, share the static-electricity properties of Earth balloons, much to the Doctor's consternation. Rose's hair was in braids, so the effect on her was minimal, but the Doctor's hair went completely awry; even more wild than usual.

Rose, who had been wondering if the balloons could pop, had her curiosity satisfied when two balloons, squeezed between the boat and the TARDIS, exploded with a less-than-impressive pop - really more of a "phlub" - and sent forth a shower of moist and stringy innards, directly into the Doctor's face.

Between the soggy threads in his eyes, the peals of Rose's laughter in his ears, and the nearly complete darkness that had fallen it's really no wonder that he didn't notice the small figure crouching behind a nearby bush, watching them carefully.

Rose, for her part, was far too intent upon getting into the TARDIS to find some dry clothes, to notice the figure herself, but even if she had, she probably wouldn't have given it a second thought given the Doctor's assurances that there were no sentient or harmful life forms on this planet.

The door to the TARDIS closed behind them, and the figure behind the bush emerged, revealing a small body, similar to a four-foot tall, furry monkey. He punched some buttons on a communication device, which beeped in reply.

"We have some new donors," he spoke into the device.

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

Calculating his exact age proved to be much more of a challenge than anticipated.

It's not like she could've done one candle per year on the cake without seriously alarming the TARDIS' fire sensors, and anyway it would've required the _Guinness Book of World Records_ Largest Cake Ever to fit them all on. Still, she had some of those edible ball bearings that he loved so much and had hoped to at least spell out the numerals atop the cake.

Really though, she wondered, how do you calculate the age of a time traveller, particularly one who's travelled as extensively as the Doctor has? He'd always thrown about the rough figure of "over nine hundred years," but after discussing the matter with him, Rose wasn't sure how he'd even arrived at that vague number. When pressed, he did some calculations and presented her with a more specific figure, claiming that he had totalled up the amount of linear time he'd spent on every single stop he'd made in his ten lives, (rounding upwards, in some cases to the nearest year) and done a conversion from Gallifreyan time to Earth time, taking into account the rather complex Gallifreyan calendar, (which, apparently, varied from year to year by up to 50 days), and even claimed to have factored in Earth's leap years. However, since this entire calculation took him all of three minutes, she sincerely doubted its accuracy.

And even then, it wasn't a firm number he'd given her, it was a range. "Somewhere between 917 and 935 years. Give or take a month or two," had been his final reply.

In the end, she'd settled for one candle per century and left it at that. The ball bearings ended up scattered randomly in the icing.

So now she was walking towards him as he was seated at the table in the TARDIS kitchen, cake in hand with all nine candles ablaze. She began to sing, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Doctor, happy birthday to you."

He looked up at her, smiling affectionately in that way that made her heart skip a beat and her insides feel warm and tingly as if she'd just swallowed a shot of brandy.

And then suddenly he seemed to remember something, a shadow crossed his face, and he looked down, just for a moment. When he looked up again, his face was transformed with that charming grin of his that he wore like a suit of armour.

Rose felt like she'd been doused with a bucket of cold water, and was again reminded of the feel of the icy lake outdoors. She had a sudden thought that perhaps he'd let that kiss linger rather longer than intended.

She placed the cake down in front of him. "Make a wish," she instructed.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and then leaned over and blew out the candles.

"What'd you wish for?" she asked, a teasing grin on her face.

"Clean sheets on my bed every day," he replied. "Really, there's nothing better in the Universe than climbing into a bed of clean, fresh-smelling sheets after a long day. If everyone in the universe had fresh sheets every night, there'd be a lot less killing. I _really_ believe that."

"You are _not_ using this as an excuse to get me to do your laundry," she taunted him as she cut up the cake and dished out a generous slice for each of them.

He took a taste and nodded appreciatively. "Quite nice," he acknowledged. He took another bite and swirled it around in his mouth before swallowing. "I seriously think that history will remember chocolate as Earth's greatest contribution in the universe." He paused. "Well, that and the erasable pen. Absolute genius, that."

As Rose ate her cake, she noticed that he was playing with the yo-yo again. Or trying to, anyway; after bobbing it up and down a few times, he winced in pain and started rubbing his shoulder.

"Have you put on weight?" he asked her cheekily. "Tossing you in the water really wrenched my muscles."

"What a sweet talker, you are," she replied, insulted. "How could I possibly put on weight when I'm running for my life every other day with you?"

"It's starting to throb," he complained.

"You know, my mate Louise's a massage therapist, she taught me these amazing acupressure techniques," Rose offered. "Let's have a look." She stood up and came over to where he was sitting. She tried to grab at his shoulder, but he jerked away from her touch as if he had received a jolt of electricity.

"Oh, I'm all right, thanks," he said evasively. "Love a good massage as much as anyone; there's a spa over on the planet Flum, lady by the name of Madrana does this incredible technique, never been so relaxed in my life. Didn't want to get out of bed for a week. You humans, though," he waggled a finger at her, "You get a bit funny when there's a lot of touching going on. Always think it's something sexual. Women get a bit overeager. Scares the hell out of men. Unless it's Jack, and we're back to our first problem."

Rose couldn't help thinking that _he_ was the one who was getting "a bit funny" about being touched. Forgetting for the moment about the countless times they had held hands and hugged, she _had_ also massaged his shoulders on a few occasions. She had no idea why he was being ridiculous about this, but she knew what he needed, and she was damn well going to do it. She lunged at him again and this time was too fast for him; she grabbed his shoulder and delivered a wallop of a blow to the appropriate pressure point.

He cried out in pain, doubled over, grabbing his shoulder and letting forth a stream of swear words, only a few of which she understood, though the general idea of it all was glaringly apparent. Rose made a mental note to use one of these incomprehensible yet oh-so-colourful phrases the next time he asked her to do the shopping for him.

And then he paused, and slowly, carefully, lifted his arm upwards. "Blimey, Rose, what in the name of Rasillon did you just do to me?"

"Feeling better, then?" she asked with a self-satisfied smile. "It'll freeze up again, though, probably worse if you don't let me work it out properly."

He sighed in resignation, removed his jacket and sat down again, allowing her to come behind him to massage his shoulders. She started working on his knotted muscles, using thumb, then fist, then elbow, and quickly realized that he was not cooperating. Despite his supposed resignation to her treatment, he was making no effort whatsoever to relax, and was, in fact, twitching and squirming in his seat like a seven-year-old who can't sit still in school.

"If you're not going to relax and enjoy this I'm going to have to pump some of that Bulax Sipping Fire we picked up on Nolsk into you," she threatened. "In fact," she said hurriedly, and marched out of the room without finishing her sentence.

She reappeared moments later, a bottle of pink liquid in hand and a huge grin across her face. "Look," she indicated. "The balloons." They had inadvertently left all the balloons back in the console room earlier. Now Rose was dimming the lights and pushing as many as she could reach back into the kitchen.

The room was transformed immediately.

Rose gasped as she admired the sight. The balloons were floating about the room, giving off their musky scent that was magnified in the confined space, just enough to be intoxicating without reaching the point of being overpowering. They gave off the softest, loveliest collage of lights that gently moved about, creating colourful designs on the walls and floor throughout the room.

"Gorgeous," she murmured reverently to the Doctor.

She set the glasses down on the table and poured a drink for each of them, making sure to give him a more-than-generous amount. She lifted up her glass to give a toast. "Happy birthday, dear Doctor," she declared.

He clicked his tongue and winked at her as they both downed their drinks.

Rose set her glass down. "Are you ready to do this properly now?" she demanded.

"I am," he confirmed. "I place myself in your hands. I am at your mercy. I humbly subject myself to your healing touch. I – OW!" he cried as she dug into his sore muscles once again.

He tried to squirm out of her grasp, but she held him firmly by the shoulders and steadied him. "Sit _still_," she commanded.

"I would if you would stop gouging me," he whined.

Rose went to work again on his muscles. The drink appeared to be taking effect; he was almost entirely still as she started working on him, this time more gently at first in an effort to calm him down. She was silent, not wanting to provide any stimulation or other reason for him to get restless all over again.

She had to admit, though, that she was rather enjoying this excuse to be exploring his physique in this manner. She hadn't given him a massage since he'd regenerated and was pleased to see that despite this thinner body, he was at least as fit as his previous body had been.

Of course he couldn't stay silent for long. All of two minutes had passed before he spoke up. "So what made you think of all this?" he asked.

"Mm, must've been you moaning about your shoulder and winding me up over my weight," Rose replied.

"No, not the massage, the birthday," he clarified.

"Oh. I don't know," she replied vaguely. "It was my mum's birthday last time we were home, and I was thinking that I'd missed mine while we were away, only I don't even know how old I am any more, so I just got to thinking about time travellers and birthdays…" she trailed off. Her hands were working around his right shoulder blade. She found a tight spot and dug in with her thumbs.

"And the present?" he asked, wincing.

"Ah, the present," she smiled. "Been saving that for a while. Remember when we were in New York City in 1991? You were working on those TARDIS repairs."

"Best use for an egg beater I've ever come up with," he interjected cheerfully.

"So you told me," she said, rolling her eyes. "Well I found this amazing shop in the East Village, that's where I got it."

"The yo-yo too?" he asked after a brief pause, and Rose had the distinct impression that there was more behind this question than he was letting on.

For one hideous moment, Rose considered inventing some fantastic story involving a ukulele, some poodles and a garlic press, detailing the lengths she'd gone to just to find him the Universe's Perfect Yo-yo. Then she thought perhaps the unadulterated truth was the better option and almost confessed that it had been a freebie and an afterthought. In the end, she settled on a compromise and replied, "Yeah, the yo-yo too."

"So you didn't get it when we were on Melania?"

"No," she confirmed, wondering why he thought it would've occurred to her to buy a yo-yo when they were in the middle of trying to stop a junta of elephant-sized aliens from taking over the planet using mostly staplers.

She finished on his right shoulder and moved up to his neck, where she started tracing straight lines, from the base of his neck up to the base of his skull. He leaned his head forward, allowing her easier access, and sighed contentedly.

Two balloons drifted past and the musky scent wafted over them.

"Why Melania?" she finally asked him.

"Oh, no reason," the Doctor replied, his eyes closed. "It's just that they have yo-yo's there. They're actually quite popular. Especially in some of the racier cities. They have some, erm, creative uses for them."

Rose was almost certain that she felt his neck muscles tighten, and wondered what in the world (universe!) the Melanians could be doing with their yo-yos to cause this reaction in him. Her mind reeled with the possibilities, as she pushed a series of pressure points along the base of his skull. She could feel him pressing back into her hands, encouraging her to go harder.

"Cooking tool?" she guessed after a time.

"What's that?" he asked, sounding like he had just woken from a particularly pleasant dream.

"The Melanians' use for a yo-yo."

"Oh. No," he replied vaguely. "Though they do have some rather interesting cooking tools now that you mention it." He chuckled lightly. "They have a delicacy that's actually made from the sweat of an animal on their planet sort of like a rat. They've got the most ingenious tool for extracting it – "

"You're changing the subject," she cut him off in a singsong voice.

"Am not," he denied. "We're talking about unusual uses for objects. That piece of rubber I picked up outside, for example, could be any number of – "

"Jewellery?" she cut him off.

"Jewellery?" he repeated, sounding like this was the most ridiculous thing he'd every heard. "Only humans would have taste bad enough to wear a yo-yo as jewellery."

She giggled. "I used to have a pair of earrings that were dice."

"I rest my case," he replied.

"Why won't you tell me?" she demanded.

"Information will be given on a need-to-know only basis," he replied.

"Since when?"

"Since never, I've just always wanted to say that," he said jovially. "Lends a sort of authoritarian air to things, don't you think? Makes me feel a bit George Bush about the whole thing. Oh Rose, just wait till you see what happens to Mr. George W. in 2017, those Belgians just absolutely devastate his…"

"Would you stop changing the subject?" she cut him off again. His evasiveness had her increasingly intrigued. Toying with her, all puns aside, was one thing, but there was clearly something here that he didn't want to talk about. He was uncomfortable, and he wasn't hiding it very well either, which was quite uncharacteristic of him. She had a suspicion that the drink and the massage were chipping away at his normally ironclad boundaries just a little.

The Doctor did not respond to this latest accusation, as he was, well, _responding_ to the massage in various other ways. Rose's fingers had moved further up, and were now massaging his scalp, running slowly through his thick hair, grabbing handfuls and pulling gently. His head lolled about each time she let go, a sure sign that he was quite thoroughly relaxed. His eyes were closed and she realized that she was stealing glances, tracing every detail of his face - his full lips, long lashes, finely chiselled features.

In an effort to distract herself from him, Rose continued to ponder what the Melanians used their yo-yos for. Clearly it wasn't anything so ordinary as a tool of some sort; nothing like that could be causing such awkwardness for him. But it was a _yo-yo_, after all, it's not like it could be something like –

"A sex toy!" she guessed, an enormous smile spread across her face, as she moved her hands back down to his left shoulder and began digging in again with her thumbs and fist.

He groaned and rubbed his eyes and she knew she'd guessed right.

"But what…I mean, how?" she stammered, torn between wanting to understand the specifics and thinking maybe it was best not to know too much about the specifics of alien sex toys.

He sighed. "You remember they have tentacles," he began, his voice perfectly even, as she accidentally bumped a purple balloon with her elbow, causing it to brush gently against his cheek.

Rose's fingers found a sore spot; she carefully placed her elbow on it and leaned in. "Mm-hm," she replied.

"Tentacles with pleasure receptors," he explained, and she knew he was being deliberately vague. "Tentacles that can wind round things."

Rose lifted her elbow up off the sore spot and began smoothing out the area with slow, firm strokes of her hands.

"Plus some of the yo-yos have a rather larger hole in the middle than you've seen before," he continued, placing a subtle emphasis on the word 'hole'.

Rose's fingers continued smoothing up his neck. She was almost certain she heard him catch his breath as she gently stroked behind his ears. She resisted the urge to bury her face in his hair.

"And some are even battery powered," he murmured, and she suspected that he was actually starting to enjoy elaborating on this topic. "Vibrating. The really top-notch ones give off a pulse much like an Energy Rider." He leaned his head backwards a bit as she grabbed his ears to rub them.

"I see," she said demurely, though she had no idea what an Energy Rider was. She took a step closer towards him in order to reach around to his face, where she started working his jaw muscles with her thumbs. His hair tickled the bottom of her chin as she spoke, "Well that one's just a plain old boring Earth yo-yo."

Two balloons, red and blue, drifted by overhead, causing their shimmering reflections to dance across his face and hair.

Rose moved her fingers up to massage his temples. She stifled a gasp as he let his head go limp, resting it back on her chest. She moved her fingers down and applied a series of pressure points along his jaw line. As her hand passed over his mouth, she could just barely feel that his lips were moistened.

Without thinking, she passed a finger directly over his lips. And she did so, he parted them, and her heart pounded as she could feel him biting her finger ever so gently while his tongue swirled around the fingertip. Rose stood frozen in place, transfixed, afraid of breaking the spell.

"Best birthday present I've ever had," he murmured affectionately, breathlessly, and, she thought, rather suggestively, as she lightly traced her finger down his chin, neck, and brushed the portion of his chest revealed by his loosened shirt and tie.

Rose flushed red for a moment as she pondered these words. Then she grinned and replied, "_only_ birthday present you've ever had," her voice dripping with playful indignation. She leaned over and brushed her lips against his right ear, knowing that he could feel her quickened breath. And then she gave it a gentle nibble.

Immediately she knew she'd made a mistake. The Doctor's entire body stiffened, making her wonder for a moment if she could actually have drawn blood with her bite. She quickly realized this was not the case, when he bounced up out of his seat and stepped away, putting a good six feet of distance between them, all the while rubbing his shoulder and nodding. "Right. Right. Very nice," he said, grinning maniacally, meeting her gaze in a series of such short, yet evasive and calculated glances that she felt for a moment that she might, quite literally, have beams of fire shooting from her eyes.

And then he paused for a moment, avoiding her gaze entirely. "Well, I think I'm going to catch some Z's, forty winks, hit the sack, as they say," he announced in a falsely cheerful tone. "The cake was lovely, Rose. Really. The whole birthday, the gifts, just superb." He leaned in for a perfunctory and very awkward hug, and then bounded out of the room faster than she'd ever seen him move before. And considering the number of times they'd run for their lives together, that was really saying something.

Rose watched the door close behind him, and was left wondering how she could possibly have misread his signals.

- + - + - +

The TARDIS had recently developed a fondness for classic Country and Western music, much to the Doctor's chagrin and Rose's delight. Rose had grown up listening to her mum's Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash albums, and was happy to provide the TARDIS with a generous selection of CD's for their listening enjoyment. After two days of it, however, the Doctor put his foot down, threatening to enrol them in a four-month course in Comparative Intergalactic Botany if any further of it was played in his presence. Thus Rose and the TARDIS were banished to Rose's room, which had led to the new habit of the TARDIS playing music for Rose to fall asleep to.

Tonight, however, the selection was Hank Williams' _Honky Tonkin'_ and Rose wasn't finding it the least bit sleep-inducing.

Of course, it had nothing to do with the inscrutable behaviour of the mercurial alien with a penchant for pinstripes that was currently asleep two doors away, she told herself.

Seriously, though, '_Mixed signals'_ was an the understatement of the year.

_When you and your baby have a fallin' out  
Just call me up sweet mama and we'll go steppin' out_

_And we'll go honky tonkin', honky tonkin'  
_

She shifted back onto her left side and took a series of slow, deep breaths in an effort to induce drowsiness into her restless body. In her mind, she ran through the names of everyone she remembered from her High School graduating class; her version of counting sheep.

_Gayle. Andrew. Jeff. Mary. Linda._ (She'd heard Linda was married last year.) _Kerstin. Kate. Alex_. (Alex, she'd heard, was in school training to be a doctor.)

_Doctor_. She wondered why he called himself that; if it was some title he'd earned, or just a name he'd adopted along the way. An affectation, perhaps. She wondered if he'd ever had a real name.

She wondered if he'd ever been with a human before. If his previous self would've -

_Stop_, she told herself. She turned onto her back and opened her eyes.

_We're goin' to the city - to the city fair  
If you go to the city then you will find me there  
And we'll go honky tonkin', honky tonkin'  
Honky tonkin', honey baby_

Rose was suddenly starting to think that the Botany course might be preferable to the music after all.

After three and a half hours of this, she gave up and got out of bed. She soon found herself padding around the corridors of the TARDIS in search of a pair of earplugs. She made her way to the infirmary and rummaged through the cabinets, which were full of countless alien medical devices, jars of ointments with indecipherable labels, and SpongeBob bandages. But no earplugs.

An hour later, wandering aimlessly, she discovered a shelf of books in the wardrobe room, hidden behind the rack of twelfth-century men's footwear. She spotted a book entitled _Salt: A World History_ and thought it might be just soporific enough for her purposes.

One hour later, now fully versed in the ancient Chinese uses of brine for preserving vegetables, but still entirely awake, she found herself in the console room, where she saw that the sun was rising outside, and decided that an early-morning stroll by the lake was in order. She opened the door to the TARDIS, let herself out, and headed down to the lake for a walk.

Five minutes later, having been attacked from behind, she was being dragged, unconscious, into the woods by a pair of hairy primates.


End file.
